


tell me why my gods look like you

by not_always_sunny



Series: Etheria High School AU [1]
Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Breaking and Entering, F/F, Friends to Lovers, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-01
Updated: 2019-05-01
Packaged: 2020-02-10 21:15:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18668512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/not_always_sunny/pseuds/not_always_sunny
Summary: Catra spun the chair in a circle, laughing as she twirled around and around and around. Her head was thrown back, her feet held up off the ground. She closed her eyes, pure glee radiating off every molecule in her body. It was absolutely captivating — and contagious.Fuck it , Adora decided. Who cares if she’s a bad influence? Shadow Weaver can go — well, Shadow Weaver can go mind her own business is what she can do. Yeah. That.—a short modern au based off a prompt I saw.





	tell me why my gods look like you

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from King Princess’ 1950. Go listen to her, she’s amazing.
> 
> This is based off this prompt on tumblr: https://witterprompts.tumblr.com/post/182115113401/how-about-we-ignore-how-morally-grey-of-us-this.

“We shouldn’t be doing this.” 

Catra laughed as she pulled herself up onto the windowsill. “You’re right. But isn’t that what makes it fun?”

Adora tugged nervously at the strings of her sweatshirt. “Breaking the law isn’t  _ fun,  _ Catra. We could get in serious trouble for this. We can’t just break into a school classroom on the weekend!”

“Mmhmm. We could.” Catra shifted forward, then let out a yelp as she slid back down the brick wall and onto the ground. Somehow she landed on her feet, graceful as ever. She glared up at the windowsill, like it had personally wronged her. Maybe it had.

“Catra! If you’re not back at the foster home by eight, we could —”

“Adora.” Catra stepped forward and gently pried one of the sweatshirt strings from her hand. She twirled it around her finger lazily. “We’ll be fine. There won’t be anyone here. You said that it was unfair of Hordak to take your bracelet away from you, so now we’re getting it back.”

“Well, yes, but …”

“So how about we ignore how morally grey of us this is and just do it anyway?”

Catra continued spinning the string around her finger, a small smirk growing as Adora stepped just a bit closer. There was a strand of hair falling in her face. She resisted the urge to slide her hand into her friend’s dark mane and fix it. “Okay.”

Catra blinked. “Okay?”

“Okay. Let’s show that old man that he can’t just take his students’ property away because it’s ‘too political’.”

“That’s the spirit! And by the way,  _ I _ liked your bracelet.”

The two girls shared a grin. “You would. You like anything with the word ‘gay’ on it,” Adora teased.

“That I do. And your point is?”

“Nerd.”

“Jock.”

“Touché.”

Adora knelt down onto the grass, still cool with morning dew, and laced her fingers together to make a foothold for Catra to use. Her friend scrambled back onto the ledge, swearing under her breath as she reached through the crack in the window and pushed it open fully.

“I got it!”

She wiggled through the gap, vanishing inside the classroom with a soft  _ thud. _

Adora rushed to the windowsill. “Catra? Are you alright? Did you fall?”

Catra’s grinning face appeared through the opening. She stood on her tiptoes, leaning on the cabinets by the windows. She had that wild, triumphant look in her eyes, that look like she was drunk on the adrenaline of  _ dangerous _ . Adora hated that look. And she loved it too.

“Climb on in!”

She reached her hands through the gap, and Adora allowed her to pull her up with an air of reluctance that was more faked than anything else. She landed on top of the cabinets on all fours, wincing slightly as her knees collided with the metal.

A soft hand gripped her shoulder in a steadying gesture. Adora looked up, and almost bumped noses. She froze.

She always forgot how gold Catra’s left eye was. It was like light itself, like the sun had made its home in one of her eyes while the sky took over the other. The sight was striking against her copper skin. Mesmerizing.

Adora noted vaguely that Catra had stolen her chapstick again. Her lips were pink, full and glossy, and she smelled very faintly of that classic fake cherry flavor. Her mouth parted slightly, hanging open almost imperceptibly.

Her multicolored eyes slid downward. Adora watched her, barely breathing, as Catra swiped her tongue over her upper lip. The air was charged. Electric. Neither of them seemed to want to move. There was a splash of freckles across Catra’s nose, likely brought on by the increasingly-frequent sun exposure. Adora had the strangest urge to reach out and touch one.

For a brief minute they stayed there, stuck in an unbreakable limbo. She couldn’t even think.

Then Catra stepped backward, her usual cocky smirk returning, and the moment was gone. Adora realized only then how tense her body was.

“Well, what are you waiting for?” Catra asked. “Let’s find your stupid bracelet.”

“‘ _ Stupid’ _ ? This was  _ your  _ idea!” Adora swung her legs off the cabinet and followed after her, rolling her eyes. But it was entirely for show. The excitement of the break-in was definitely starting to get to her.

Huh. Maybe Shadow Weaver was right and Catra was a bad influence.

Said bad influence had flopped herself into Mr. Hordak’s straight-backed desk chair. “Adora! Who am I?” She deepened her voice in a poor imitation of their teacher. “Homework shall be due at the end of class. Do not disappoint me, or face my wrath!”

A small giggle slipped out. “He doesn’t even sound like that!”

“Does too.”

“Does not!”

Catra spun the chair in a circle, laughing as she twirled around and around and around. Her head was thrown back, her feet held up off the ground. She closed her eyes, pure glee radiating off every molecule in her body. It was absolutely captivating — and contagious.

_ Fuck it _ , Adora decided.  _ Who cares if she’s a bad influence? Shadow Weaver can go — well, Shadow Weaver can go mind her own business is what she can do. Yeah. That. _

Catra had ceased her spinning in lieu of ruffling through the desk drawers, keeping up a running narration of its contents.

“Eww, no wonder he smells so bad. Did you know that he keeps a can of Axe body spray in here? Yeah, I didn’t want to know that either. Man, this is so messy. I was gonna look for test answers or something, but I can’t find  _ anything.  _ Who needs this many calculators? It’s not like he ever lets us use them.”

Adora wandered over to see for herself. “Maybe they’re confiscated calculators.”

“Yeah, maybe. Aha! Here we go! The coveted confiscation drawer.”

“Coveted” certainly wasn’t an exaggeration, Adora realized, scanning the drawer for her bracelet. It was filled to the brim with probably thousands of different students’ possessions, from tiny trinkets to electronics. Hordak had an infamous tradition of never returning anything he’d taken, and it really showed.

“Hey, is that Lonnie’s ipod?” She pointed at the memorable bright pink case, and Catra snickered.

“Serves her right for all those years of using it to pointedly ignore me. Look, it’s Kyle’s shitty bouncy ball! Oh man, I forgot about that thing.”

Adora picked it up and gave it an experimental bounce. It almost hit the ceiling, ricocheting off the lights with a noise that was much too loud for comfort. Both girls instinctively looked over their shoulders toward the doorway, relaxing when no noise came from outside.

“I told you, it’s empty on weekends,” Catra shrugged nonchalantly.

“Allegedly,” Adora said darkly.

“Yeah, okay, drama queen. Now help me look for your bracelet! There’s mountains of jewelry in this thing.”

Adora spotted the rainbow thread easily. With no small amount of tenderness, she pulled out the bracelet and cradled it to her chest, running her finger over it to make sure it was undamaged.

The bracelet was her favorite birthday present from Bow ever, although it was worth noting that she hadn’t known him for very long, and therefore had not received very many birthday presents from him. The point was, she loved the bracelet a lot, and she wore it everyday, along with the friendship necklace Catra had made for her when they were six.

The bracelet was crocheted, simple but elegant with a rainbow design, but the real draw was Bow’s impressive embroidery:  _ TOO GAY TO FUNCTION _ , spelled out in black thread.

She looked back down at the desk and let out a gasp.

Catra squeaked in alarm. “What? What’s wrong?”

Adora glared at the offending drawer with rage. “Hordak took Bow and Glimmer’s bracelets too!”

They were in plain sight now: Bow’s blue, pink, and white bracelet which she knew read simply,  _ TRANS RIGHTS :) _ , as well as Glimmer’s pink, purple, and blue one, on which Bow had inscribed, at her request,  _ i swing both ways. with a bat. come and get some, motherfucker. _ The words were very tiny in order to fit on the bracelet, and Adora was impressed all over again at Bow’s craftsmanship.

“How dare he take those!” Adora snapped. “Why does Hordak even  _ care _ ?”

Catra seemed unperturbed by this blatant abuse of power. “Because he’s a bitch. Obviously.” Her expression softened at the frown on her friend’s face. “C’mon, we can take those too.”

“But...isn’t that wrong? I mean, it’s one thing to get my own property back, it’s another to steal from our teacher…”

Catra rolled her eyes. “Adora, I love you a lot, but you’re such a goody-two-shoes sometimes. Besides, we’re not the one stealing!  _ Hordak  _ stole those bracelets, and we’re  _ returning _ them.”

She was surprised — or maybe she was unsurprised, Adora had never been any good at healthily processing her feelings — at the warmth that flowed through her when she heard that. Desperately hoping she wasn’t doing anything condemning with her face, she cleared her throat.

“Uh, yeah. Right.” She tried to focus on the task at hand, not the fluttering in her stomach at the l-word. Which shouldn’t even be a thing. They’d both said that word a million times before. So this shouldn’t be any different. But it was. Oh, fuck.

“Fine, I suppose you’re right. But I’m taking Lonnie’s ipod too, it’s only fair. I’ll return it to her at football practice on Monday.” She slipped the bracelets onto her hand for safekeeping, and stowed away the ipod in her sweatshirt pocket.

“Those things  _ are  _ pretty badass,” admitted Catra, tapping her wrist with a painted fingernail. “Do you — do you think Bow would make me one if I asked?”

“Of course!” Adora smiled. “He would be happy to. He really wants you to like him, you know.”

Catra didn’t respond to that, electing instead to stare down at her bare feet — she’d left her shoes outside, claiming that it was better to sneak around in bare feet — as if hoping it would hide her blush.

Adora found this incredibly cute. She stepped a bit closer, and took her hand, threading their fingers together. “What message would you want your bracelet to say?”

Catra met her gaze evenly, even though her cheeks were still flushed. “Oh, I get to choose what it says?”

“Of course. We’re a democracy, after all.”

She paused for a minute, clearly thinking it over. Then she grinned. “ _ Evil lesbian _ . That’s what I want mine to say.”

Adora burst out laughing. “What? Why?”

“Uh, are you questioning my identity? This is homophobia, Adora.”

“What? Shut up.” She gave Catra a playful shove, and the girl went toppling sideways, giggling. “You’re not evil. Is what I mean. I mean, I’m confused as to why you want  _ evil  _ lesbian on your hypothetical bracelet, since you’re clearly not.”

Catra straightened up. “Yeah, right.” Her eyes seemed to contain more feeling than would be expected for the conversation. This was one of those new incidents where Adora found herself struggling to read the girl who’d always been an open book to her.

“You’re not evil,” she said firmly, trying to figure out where this was going.

The stare they shared was vaguely combative, like she was trying to win a fight she didn’t know existed. Like she was standing in the rough ocean; she would get sucked in and pulled under if she took one wrong step.

Then, yet again Catra took a step back and laughed. “Obviously,” she said, and Adora couldn’t tell if she had won or lost that argument. Or if it had even existed in the first place.

“Obviously I’m not evil,” Catra continued. “But if I was, I’d be happy to allow you to be my sidekick.”

“I wouldn’t be your sidekick!” Adora protested. “I’d be, I don’t know, your second-in-command. Or your superior!”

“No way. You’re definitely grunt material.”

“Oh, that’s it!” She leapt forward and wrestled her into a headlock; Catra shrieked and tried to wiggle out, but Adora had done this many, many times before and she had not lost to her yet.

“This is what you get for being anti-physical education,” she teased, and got a stuck-out tongue in response. “It’s true! You have noodle arms!”

Catra wriggled under her hold. “Untrue! You’re just freakishly strong, you giant —” She broke off abruptly.

The two girls froze and slowly disentangled. Even through the closed door, they could hear the unmistakable sound of voices chatting and high heels clicking as someone walked up the hallway.

“...And as I said to Hope the other day, we need to have more options in the staff room. I get so annoyed when Angella keeps telling us to replace …”

“I thought you said this place would be empty on a weekend!” whispered Adora, a bit panicked.

“Well, obviously I was wrong!” Catra hissed back. She pressed a finger to her lips.

From outside the door, some teacher said, “Penelope, did you hear a noise coming from Hordak’s room? I thought I heard…”

“No, I didn’t hear anything,” another voice answered. “Are you sure?”

Adora and Catra barely had to exchange a look before they both turned and fled, scrambling atop the cabinets and out the window in less than a few seconds. She didn’t dare turn around, afraid that if she did, she’d see the furious face of a teacher chasing after her.

Catra was the first to jump, and Adora followed shortly after, letting out a soft  _ oof  _ when she hit the ground. Never before had she been so thankful for the years of balance practice instilled in her by various sports coaches and Shadow Weaver.

Catra grabbed her hand as soon as she stood up, and the two sprinted away, down the hill and into the senior parking lot, then down the street, definitely jaywalking and probably breaking a few other pedestrian rules. She wasn’t paying that much attention.

Only once they got to the 7-11 near Perfuma’s house did they stop, gasping for breath on the curb.

“That — was — terrifying,” panted Adora.

“I think … you mean … thrilling,” wheezed Catra.

Then they both burst out laughing, almost choking on their giggles as they collapsed into one another. They must’ve looked completely insane to passerby, but she couldn’t bring herself to care one bit.

“You should’ve seen your face!” Catra howled. “You were all  _ nooo! Doooom! This is the endddd! _ ”

“My face? Your face was worse! You looked like a cat that was about to be thrown into a bathtub!” shot back Adora. “ _ Nooo! Doooom!” _

Catra smothered her giggles by burying her face into Adora’s shoulder. Adora, in turn, buried her face in Catra’s hair, laughing so hard she felt tears prickle the edges of her eyes.

“I’m...I’m gonna go buy a slushie,” said Catra, her voice muffled slightly against Adora’s shirt. “What flavor d’ya want?”

“Wait, where did you get money?”

She pulled back and reached into her pocket, pulling out a plastic baggie with a few dollars and several coins in it. “Swiped it from the desk. Let’s call it Hordak’s treat.”

“Catra!”

“What? It’s not like I’m robbing him, he probably got this off of some poor freshman. Besides, consider it just compensation for all the trouble we just went through. What flavor do you want?”

“...Blue raspberry.”

“Eww.” She wrinkled her nose. “Gross. I’m  _ not  _ sharing with you. Ew.”

“Hey,” protested Adora, “don’t knock it ‘til you try it!”

“Mmhmm.” Catra was already walking toward the 7-11, clearly not listening whatsoever.

“You’re wrong!” she called after her.

“Am not but okay!”

“Are too!”

“I’m not listening! Lalalala I can’t hear you!”

“Thank you for the slushie! I appreciate it!” At this, she got a thumbs up in return.

Adora hesitated. “Wait. Catra?”

She turned around, already at the convenience store door. “Yeah?”

“I’m  _ not  _ doing that ever again.”

Catra laughed, a sound that would never stop being beautiful. “Okay, you goody-two-shoes.” Then she blew Adora a kiss and turned on her heel, swinging the door open with a  _ whoosh _ .

Adora watched her go, her eyes lingering just a bit too long. She looked down at her bracelet, still smiling.

_ TOO GAY TO FUNCTION. _

_ Hmm,  _ she thought,  _ maybe Bow had a point. _

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked this, feel free to leave a kudos or a comment!
> 
> Find me on tumblr @not-always-sunny!


End file.
